


In which Gil overthinks

by Overlord_Bethany



Series: unreliable narrators [10]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Mid-Canon, Multi, this poor clueless flapjack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 06:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14868290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlord_Bethany/pseuds/Overlord_Bethany
Summary: I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually.





	In which Gil overthinks

With a sigh, Gil sank into a chair. With Tarvek gone to see Agatha, he should spend his time focusing on other matters. He should do something useful. He should absolutely  _not_  sit here wallowing in his solitude. 

He hadn’t felt this alone since…

Unwanted memories crashed over him. The liquid sloshing into his mouth and his ears as he beat his palms against the glass. The way he had screamed his voice raw, fighting to make his father listen to him. How he had tried to argue that killing the more or less innocent people of Mechanicsburg just because Agatha might be a threat disgraced the memory of Bill and Barry Heterodyne. How his father had turned away, stern and impassive, a man of stone to the last. Gil pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Something bitter and angry stirred within him, and he didn’t know if it was his own. 

He tried to steer his thoughts away, as he usually did, but this time everything felt just too heavy to bear. Everything  _hurt_  too much. The pain of his father’s betrayal cast its large, looming shadow over the other discontentments he felt. How could he just accept the reality of Tarvek going to Agatha’s side when he could not? They could be in one another’s arms right now, their bodies pressed together, their lips, their breath…

Gil’s pulse had quickened at the thought, but the expected flash of rage did not follow. No, something was wrong. Agatha and Tarvek had ample opportunity to leave him behind, and the thought didn’t make him want to destroy things? Preposterous. And why, when thinking of a preferable alternative, did he imagine all three of them doing Science and solving problems and maybe, if he was very bold, enjoying one another’s company? Why should keeping Tarvek around as part of their absurd little entourage come into question at all? Gil had never managed to keep Tarvek in his life. Why should he expect to succeed now?

Gil harrumphed and sank lower in his chair. A flicker of movement caught his eye, a hair stirred by his breath. Gil plucked it from his waistcoat and held it up to the light. Crimson. Likely dislodged from its place during that playful tussling right before Tarvek’s departure. Gil stretched the hair out to its full length, then wound it slowly around his fingertip. Five and a half turns, with just enough pressure to whiten his skin around it. Tarvek would call him boorish for playing with a fallen strand of hair. Gil managed a flicker of a smile at the thought. Well, Tarvek could say what he liked. For now, Gil would hold tightly to this one thread of proof that, at least for a little while, the two of them stood together, shoulder to shoulder, against an unforgiving world. 

Gil pressed his lips together, his tongue pushed forward against them as though searching for a taste that was never there. Nothing ever worked out as it should, but Wulfenbachs were just too stubborn to quit. Perhaps Agatha and Tarvek would be better off without his interference. Perhaps all his best efforts made the muddle of Europan politics worse than ever. And now this business in England looked to have turned messy already. Was this a fools errand? He sighed. Probably. But then, most everything he did these days started out feeling that way. Like he was chipping away at a mountain with a cheese grater. 

It didn’t matter, none of it mattered, because how would he live with himself if he didn’t try?  

He rubbed his thumb over the hair—only five strands thick, yet somehow soft?—and he imagined Tarvek teasing him for sitting here and having a good wallow. Fine, he would get up and get some work done. 

Only he didn’t. 

Gil sat in his chair, toying with the strand of crimson hair, mulling over the lie he had told. It would likely prove useful for people to believe in his distrust of Tarvek, but the reality was more complicated than he could explain. Trust never came easily to Gil, and even less so in this particular case. Yet in all fairness, he had to admit that Tarvek had proven himself relentlessly stalwart since his death. Experience told him that betrayal would come eventually, but something had changed between them. Like the ache of relaxing a muscle that had clenched for too long, like coming into a warm room after a flight in frozen winter skies, shadows of trust had started to seep through his defenses, and it hurt. 

Not that he would ever, ever assume that Tarvek wouldn’t chuck it all to pursue his own advancement. Of course he would. He had that tiresome Martellus to deal with, after all. Gil could not even fault him for it, as that man was profoundly irritating. Actually, having met Martellus, Gil felt that perhaps he understood Tarvek a little bit better. He might even, in an outrageous flight of fancy, imagine that Tarvek really did want the crown mainly to keep his cousin from abusing it. 

Gil scoffed at himself. Well that was just sentimental twaddle. 

And yet perhaps here, far from the prying eyes of the entire Empire, he could allow himself a few sentimental moments? Here, in England, where he existed in a blurry area between guest and prisoner, where he was utterly alone. Without even Bangladesh DuPree to babysit him, with Agatha so near and yet beyond his reach…

Guest or prisoner? As though butting against a spring, his thoughts bounced back to that particular point. Gil wondered, and it popped into his head that perhaps his sham engagement could prove useful in that regard. If he could convince these people that he had acted out of fear for his beloved—Hah, preposterous. Ms. Thorpe would never believe that. She had seen too much. And convincing Albia herself would be even more difficult. Probably impossible. 

Gil worried the end of the hair between his fingers. Albia, at least, wanted to avoid an international incident, but too much remained uncertain. He hated that he had to make nice and play along for an indefinite period of time. He hated that he had no choice but to rely on Tarvek as messenger between himself and Agatha. Most of all, he hated feeling that absolutely everything was beyond his control. 

Well. Maybe not everything. Unthinking, Gil opened his watch and tucked the hair behind the picture of Agatha. He pried himself from the chair and stood, assessing his resources. No matter where he went, he always had more work to do. 

He could really learn to hate being the Baron.


End file.
